US Strikes Iran’s Qeshm Island as Trump Downplays War
The official was quoted as saying: “This was a defensive measure for Iranians using surface to air missiles against US assets.”
A major U.S. financial newspaper was the first to report the strike. It came as President Donald Trump has tried to play down the prospect of renewed large-scale fighting with Iran after Tuesday’s midterm elections.
Trump told reporters Monday: “We had a war with Iran. We won,” and added, “I don’t know if you even call it a war because we haven’t been doing any fighting for months.”
US officials told the newspaper that American forces have kept up smaller-scale strikes on Iranian targets for several weeks. According to the report, some officials said the operations are meant to stop Iran from developing the ability to threaten or attack commercial shipping in the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said Monday it shot down two US drones south of Qeshm Island in the strait, a semi-official news agency reported.
Later, in an interview with a cable news host, Sean Hannity, Trump said this “is not much of a war, because it hasn’t been shooting for months.”
He then turned to Iran’s nuclear program, saying: “We bombed out all of their potential nuclear power. Now we might have to go after Pickaxe (Mountain), but that’s not a big deal ... We can do that in one hour. As soon as we want, at any time we want,” a reference to a site linked to Iran’s nuclear program.
Trump also repeated his claim that Iran wants to make a deal “very badly, and there’s a very good chance we make a deal.”
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